The Path of Morale
by August1
Summary: We follow the path of Ginny Weasley's declining personal morale. Just read it. One-shot, DG. Don't care if you review, though I appreciate it, and will do the same with yours. Inspired by Hanson's "Believe" NOT A SONGFIC


They always expected that he would be the one to hurt me.

When we first got together, it was tentative, hesitant, and neither of us expected anything long-term. We came to one another, joined in fiery spirit and challenging verbal spats, amid family rivalry, and said fuck it to the people we loved most. We were in love.

We moved in together the summer thatI graduated, the day after we 'came out' to our families, though my brother and his girlfriend, and my former crush and best friend, already suspected.

Well, they pretty much _knew_ after they caught us in a compromising position under the Quidditch stands. But I digress. They kept quiet, at my request, and that's the end of it.

I never thought that I would have done _that_ with anyone. I think that that moment, when I lost some of my self-respect along with my virginity, was when our relationship was doomed.

I didn't hate the act, though. It was fun for the first few months, new, exciting, and oh so _pleasurable_. Neither of us knew what we were doing, and the fact that we learned with each other just brought us closer.

I never suspected that he was using me, because before he even realized it himself, I knew he loved me.

And I hated myself for it.

Because I had become an empty, passionless shell and I was not capable of returning it.

I had changed, inspired this hateful, evil person to give a damn about someone else, and I took him and filled him up, and try as he may, he couldn't replace the ever growing void caused from so much emotional exertion.

I had always considered myself to be a moral person, and the second I compromised it was the first second I felt like I was going to die.

So I smiled, and told him that I loved him, and played housewife when I wasn't working at Witch Weekly, and took care of him. He _cared _about me. _Paid attention_ to me. He knew all of my nuances and idiosyncrasies, and I, his. He knew that I never drank the last bit of any liquid out of a cup, and that I couldn't stand any source of pure light because of my photophobia.

I relished the fact that when he yawned in bed, his feet flexed, almost all the way back to the ankle. And that the first thing he did when he came home from auror training was take a bath in strawberry-scented water because he hated the sulfuric smell of the headquarters.

I knew something was seriously wrong when, one night**, **he came and stood behind me while I was at my desk researching for my next article. He leaned down to kiss my neck, and I _shuddered_. Actually felt sick. He attributed it to a cold chill and made me put on one of his cashmere sweaters. "Nothing is too good for my Lady," he says.

His parents did not disown him. Lucius was still in Azkaban, and Narcissa was just delighted that her son took up with a pureblood, though she did not approve of the "shacking up." And in retrospect, neither did I. It just happened. It seemed like the logical next step.

Two months after my 18th birthday, when we'd been together for a year and a half, I learned I was pregnant. That didn't scare me; I was perfectly ready for a child. I just wasn't ready for _his_ child. The fact that I was with child, sprung from the seed of a man I knew that ultimately I would never marry, frightened me only because of the emotional distress I knew the baby would carry throughout its innocent life.

My decision sealed the fate of my sanity. Draco never knew that I was pregnant. I pray to this day that he never finds out.

The only person who knew was Harry, as he took me and held my hand. He was the only one I could trust not to judge me more than I judged myself.

Exactly 15 days after the abortion, I woke up screaming and tore around the house like a whirlwind.

"Gods, Gin, what's wrong? Sweetheart, tell me, baby, love..." and the pleading went on.

"Draco, please, please, make it go away, find it, stop it, make it go away...."

"Gin, find what? What's bothering you? Love, I can't help you if you don't tell me!"

"...the crying, the crying, oh God, Draco, please, find it!"

"Find what, Gin?" He looked terrified, now. Frantic. I had stopped sobbing and slid down the wall, landing on the marble floor.

"The baby, Draco, the baby's crying. It needs me...I can't help it, Draco, I can't..." He stared at me. As a man who realizes that the love of his life is going insane.

The next day, I packed everything that belonged to me, leaving everything he'd given me alone. I was ready to leave, but by the end of the day, I stayed. I stayed when I realized I had nowhere I could go. He was my lifeline, and I needed him. I didn't love him, but I needed him. My things were unpacked and put back into proper place by the time that he came home. And I greeted him like I always did.

And I saw the fear in his eyes. So I comforted him.

After we had sex (he would say 'make love'), he filled my ear with murmurs of his love for me, and his plans for our future. He filled my heart with dread.

The 12th night that I woke up screaming, he took me to St. Mungo's for testing. He loved me, he said, but he was getting concerned about my 'hallucinations.'

I passed all of the sanity tests with flying colors, and he was satisfied.

For someone with such vast intelligence, he saw only what his heart wanted. And I couldn't live with that anymore.

I ruined his life. I made him fall in love with someone who couldn't love him back. I tried breaking up with him, but he wouldn't let me go, and I resented him for it. I resented him for a lot of things, mostly for making me feel so unworthy as a human being with his kindness and understanding.

I was responsible for helping him to live, he said.

That was the statement that broke me.

I didn't bother to pack up my things the next day. I wouldn't need them where I was going. I was a coward.

I couldn't even go out the painful way. He asked where I was going that night, and I told him I was going for a walk. Then I kissed him and told him I loved him. He smiled contentedly.

I went out looking for answers, but death found me. It found me in the form of murder, personified by Goyle. He was drunk and accosted me in an alley. I didn't fight until he tried to rape me. I pulled out my wand, but his hands were quickly on my neck.

And then I struggled. I had to. It was that moment that I realized that with all of my mistakes and wrong choices, I couldn't hurt him like that. I was selfish, and I didn't want to be, all of a sudden.

And as it happens with most of the dead witches and wizards who are unhappy, I became a ghost.

I saw my funeral. I saw Draco break, and cried for him. I wanted to comfort him, as he spoke of my untimely death, and I watched as those that I loved wept, saying that they knew I had become an angel.

I was touched as Harry reached out to comfort Draco at the reception. I saw the man crumple into a mass of sobbing, no longer able to be the stronghold, weeping with the abandon of a child.

And my mother, my beautiful mother put her arms around him. And held him. And loved on him more than I ever had. I left them then, finding more misery in death than I had in life, because in life, I could have pretended.

I watched Draco sleep for the first year or so. I stood hidden in the curtains on the stage where he was praised for making it through Auror training. Harry and Ron shook his hand in congratulations.

I appeared to Harry once, and he didn't seem shocked. I think he knew that I wouldn't cross over. He was angry, understandably, but he listened.

It's been four years. Draco married yesterday. He's happy. She gives back to him. And I think he understands the difference, which was that I would have never made him fully happy. Hannah is pregnant, and due in 5 months.

My entire family was at the wedding. He lost me, but gained a family.

And I lost everything. Through a series of choices that went against everything I believed in, I lost my self-respect, and gained a life of second guessing, and self-doubt and self-loathing.

I'd take it all back if I could.

_I was holding on, now I'm letting go  
This is nothing more than a picture show  
Everything I knew now I hardly know  
Busy keeping less never getting more _

_One more nickel dime I'm out the door  
This kind of life I can't afford _

_Can't put my mind at ease with the words I say  
Trying to get myself to get out of my way  
Birds in the trees  
Just make me depressed  
Seeing sunny skies, feeling emptiness _

_Layers of lies just seem to fold  
This kind of life is all I know _

_Murder wears a friendly smile  
Like the perfect end in a plastic vial  
No pain  
Sorry I can't seem to stay  
But this bird was meant to fly away  
Fly away, fly away  
Fly away, fly away _

Excerpted from "Believe" by Hanson

**A/N: I in no way, shape, or form endorse suicidal thoughts/actions as a way out. **

**This is a one-shot.**

**Anyone who tells me that Draco is OOC can kiss my ass. All D/G fics are **

**OOC. **


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